Hey guys! Short post.
Just over a week ago, our Media Studies class was placed in groups, with each member of the group explaining their project to the others. The point of this was to have each member have members from other groups give advice in order to help each person improve and innovate their project in certain areas. No team members were placed in the same group. This meant that Hayden and I weren't placed in the same group.
In my group, there were four people, including myself. One of the four people is completing a two-page magazine spread, and the rest of us are working on film openings. I was the last person who explained my project, which meant that I was the last person to take advice. Before I explained my project, I realized that Hayden and I had a film that were much different from others, as the other two film projects had much different genres from ours. After I explained our film story line, the other group members gave their analysis on the film itself. The overall group agreed with the simplicity of the film, but also believed that it may be an issue. They thought that it may be too basic, and that something could be added to spice up the plot a little bit.
I thought about what my group members said, and although I decided that the point of Hayden and I choosing this film was to keep things simplistic and understandable plot, therefore not going with the idea, I understood the ideas of their statements and where they were coming from. Our production techniques must be effective in order to illustrate the plot effectively in the way we've planned it.
The group also suggested adding some diegetic sounds from the protagonist's side, meaning that the character should probably be heard speaking or committing actions, such as the actions leading up to his injury on the track. I thought this idea was great, and Hayden got this idea from his group too, so we were on the same page. We believe it;s essential to incorporate proper sound techniques in order to help illustrate the plot ideas better.
Overall, the group meeting was a success. It was an opportunity for Hayden and I to get an idea of how others are feeling about our plot, and that's exactly what we did. We'll be incorporating these ideas into the film production once we start with that.
Friday, March 23, 2018
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Storyboard Pt. 2
Like I said in my last post, Hayden and I have been working on our film storyboard, and like I promised, I’m sending the second part now that it’s done. Here it is:
Now, this is the second scene in our film, where our character is watching T.V., and eventually hears about his own injury on the television, being spoken about by sports broadcasters. Each shot shows the scene from a different perspective, as the plot continues. The film opening ends at this scene, as we believe all of the shots portrayed in our storyboard will have either eclipsed, or at least approached, our 2-minute mark. I’m doing research on the production process in films, and once I’m done with that I’ll show you guys what I’ve got.
Now, this is the second scene in our film, where our character is watching T.V., and eventually hears about his own injury on the television, being spoken about by sports broadcasters. Each shot shows the scene from a different perspective, as the plot continues. The film opening ends at this scene, as we believe all of the shots portrayed in our storyboard will have either eclipsed, or at least approached, our 2-minute mark. I’m doing research on the production process in films, and once I’m done with that I’ll show you guys what I’ve got.
Friday, March 16, 2018
Storyboard
It's been a while, but I'm back with some news! Hayden and I have been planning for the production of our film opening, and we're now producing a storyboard. A storyboard is a sequence of drawings representing the shots planned for a movie. Here it is:
Each of these cards illustrate a shot for our first scene, which includes the main character practicing. I'll be posting the rest of the storyboard here tomorrow.
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Genre Application
Hey again! No more changes to the outline of our story, but I did still decide to do some more research on the common sports drama itself, looking at what has(or has not) made some of the most popular sports films so great. Not that I'm not so confident with the story line we have now, I just wanted to put more research into our genre. I feel that the research that I've done so far hasn't been sufficient, and there may be more I could learn about sports dramas that could help further enhance the quality of our story line and/or film-making.
Throughout my research, I got into the issues of defining the sports film and its genres, the analysis on what characteristics make it work, and even got into the specifics of the sports drama, looking into one sports drama's incredible success and why it got so much love.
The first part that I looked into was the general sports film, and what qualities make it great. There are many different ways to go about with a sports film, but they all seem to cross off the same main points; well, at least all of the good ones do. The best sports films usually incorporate a sense of realism, which is the quality of representing a situation in a way that is true to life. The sports part of the film itself could very well have fiction attributions to it, but the parts around it need to put together a somewhat realistic situation. The need for a hero is almost essential for a good sports film, meaning that there is someone or a certain group of people(maybe a basketball team) that represents whatever the struggle is that needs to be overcome in the sports film. Both of these characteristics usually leads to added tension, and tension allows for the elements of suspense and surprise to be more impactful in the film. The underdog story is also very popular in sports films, as audience members tend to love the "out of nowhere" or "under-appreciated" types of characters and story lines.
The next part of my research was about the defining of genres for sports films. Sports themed films are likely to be outlined in terms of one or many different genres. The idea is to put enough different genres into a sports film in order to appeal to three different audience sectors: male viewers, female viewers and the "tertium quid" audience. The tertium quid is a third part that is undefined, but applies correlation between two other defined parts. But, in order for films to have their genre recognized, they must have a common topic, common structure and a common way of presenting the topic.
The film "Rocky" is one of the greatest sports films of all times, and is a part of what its arguably the greatest sports film series of all time. It's a film that we've wanted to generate our strategies off of, not just with the story line, but with the way that the story line is presented. "Rocky" incorporates a simple story, with relatively simplistic characters, but uses its common motifs and predictable plot points to maximum effect. It uses an inspiring story, combined with inspirational overcome of struggles, and presents these with the right amount of realism, as the audience believes that everything that is going on is real.
I'm not saying that Hayden and I will create a "Rocky", but we definitely believe that we have many of "Rocky"'s successful story aspects incorporated into our story line. I personally believe that the major task for us will be in the filming aspect, as we need to present the idea of our film in a way that the audience can relate and stay with us on, and these next couple of weeks' worth of posts will display our own "struggle" to make this film opening as great as possible.
Throughout my research, I got into the issues of defining the sports film and its genres, the analysis on what characteristics make it work, and even got into the specifics of the sports drama, looking into one sports drama's incredible success and why it got so much love.
The first part that I looked into was the general sports film, and what qualities make it great. There are many different ways to go about with a sports film, but they all seem to cross off the same main points; well, at least all of the good ones do. The best sports films usually incorporate a sense of realism, which is the quality of representing a situation in a way that is true to life. The sports part of the film itself could very well have fiction attributions to it, but the parts around it need to put together a somewhat realistic situation. The need for a hero is almost essential for a good sports film, meaning that there is someone or a certain group of people(maybe a basketball team) that represents whatever the struggle is that needs to be overcome in the sports film. Both of these characteristics usually leads to added tension, and tension allows for the elements of suspense and surprise to be more impactful in the film. The underdog story is also very popular in sports films, as audience members tend to love the "out of nowhere" or "under-appreciated" types of characters and story lines.
The next part of my research was about the defining of genres for sports films. Sports themed films are likely to be outlined in terms of one or many different genres. The idea is to put enough different genres into a sports film in order to appeal to three different audience sectors: male viewers, female viewers and the "tertium quid" audience. The tertium quid is a third part that is undefined, but applies correlation between two other defined parts. But, in order for films to have their genre recognized, they must have a common topic, common structure and a common way of presenting the topic.
The film "Rocky" is one of the greatest sports films of all times, and is a part of what its arguably the greatest sports film series of all time. It's a film that we've wanted to generate our strategies off of, not just with the story line, but with the way that the story line is presented. "Rocky" incorporates a simple story, with relatively simplistic characters, but uses its common motifs and predictable plot points to maximum effect. It uses an inspiring story, combined with inspirational overcome of struggles, and presents these with the right amount of realism, as the audience believes that everything that is going on is real.
I'm not saying that Hayden and I will create a "Rocky", but we definitely believe that we have many of "Rocky"'s successful story aspects incorporated into our story line. I personally believe that the major task for us will be in the filming aspect, as we need to present the idea of our film in a way that the audience can relate and stay with us on, and these next couple of weeks' worth of posts will display our own "struggle" to make this film opening as great as possible.
References:
Crosson, S. (n.d.). The Sports Film Genre. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://www.academia.edu/27935619/The_Sports_Film_Genre
'Rocky': A Heartwarming Sports Drama Reflecting Its Very Process of Creation • Cinephilia & Beyond. (2017, June 16). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://cinephiliabeyond.org/rocky-a-heartwarming-sports-drama-reflecting-its-very-process-of-creation/
What makes a great sports movie? (2014, July 23). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://wtop.com/news/2014/07/what-makes-a-great-sports-movie/
Crosson, S. (n.d.). The Sports Film Genre. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://www.academia.edu/27935619/The_Sports_Film_Genre
What makes a great sports movie? (2014, July 23). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://wtop.com/news/2014/07/what-makes-a-great-sports-movie/
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Outlining Pt. 2
Like I said in my previous post, Hayden and I would go over potential issues of our initial story outline, and as we did that, we began to develop a new story line using the issues we found, and made it an improved one. Here it is:
The film starts out with a flashback to a couple of days ago of a high school student practicing a sport. While he's practicing, the student gets injured, and the flashback ends. The next part shows the kid watching T.V., with the T.V. being on a sports channel. The sound from the T.V. is tuned out though, as at the moment the kid is narrating, with the sound being non-diegetic. He's narrating about his injury as he's watching, explaining the injury and how severe it is, saying that it will be a while before he plays again. Then the sports show's sound comes back on the T.V. as the narrator stops speaking. Ironically, the sports broadcasters are speaking about a high school athlete's injury. The broadcasters are speaking about how good the athlete has been, speaking of the awards and scholarship offers the athlete has gotten throughout his short, yet illustrious career. As the broadcaster continue to speak about the athlete, the same flashback that came in the beginning comes back to the student's head, and after the flashback finishes, the camera shows some of his medals, trophies, and scholarship offers sitting in his home, then shows the injury he suffered as he continues to watch T.V., implying that he's the big-time athlete that got injured.
So, same idea, just a different way of presenting it. It looks like a lot more from the description, but actually, it's less film, just more details being illustrated in each clip. The real issue was time, as 2 minutes of film isn't a lot, especially for a pair trying to generate a story start-up. As anybody who read the previous post may realize, we took out the whole scene including the radio broadcast, as we felt that it would take too much time, and we felt that it wasn't necessary in order to convey our desired idea. We feel that this amount of film will translate to 2 minutes, more or less.
As was also stated before, I said I wouldn't post the outline of our film opening until it was completed, and now that it's done, here it is. The parts that are crossed out were part of the initial outline, but we used pencil to shade over it in order to keep the ideas there, just in case we wanted to look back at them. What isn't crossed out is what we plan on using for the film.
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The film starts out with a flashback to a couple of days ago of a high school student practicing a sport. While he's practicing, the student gets injured, and the flashback ends. The next part shows the kid watching T.V., with the T.V. being on a sports channel. The sound from the T.V. is tuned out though, as at the moment the kid is narrating, with the sound being non-diegetic. He's narrating about his injury as he's watching, explaining the injury and how severe it is, saying that it will be a while before he plays again. Then the sports show's sound comes back on the T.V. as the narrator stops speaking. Ironically, the sports broadcasters are speaking about a high school athlete's injury. The broadcasters are speaking about how good the athlete has been, speaking of the awards and scholarship offers the athlete has gotten throughout his short, yet illustrious career. As the broadcaster continue to speak about the athlete, the same flashback that came in the beginning comes back to the student's head, and after the flashback finishes, the camera shows some of his medals, trophies, and scholarship offers sitting in his home, then shows the injury he suffered as he continues to watch T.V., implying that he's the big-time athlete that got injured.
So, same idea, just a different way of presenting it. It looks like a lot more from the description, but actually, it's less film, just more details being illustrated in each clip. The real issue was time, as 2 minutes of film isn't a lot, especially for a pair trying to generate a story start-up. As anybody who read the previous post may realize, we took out the whole scene including the radio broadcast, as we felt that it would take too much time, and we felt that it wasn't necessary in order to convey our desired idea. We feel that this amount of film will translate to 2 minutes, more or less.
As was also stated before, I said I wouldn't post the outline of our film opening until it was completed, and now that it's done, here it is. The parts that are crossed out were part of the initial outline, but we used pencil to shade over it in order to keep the ideas there, just in case we wanted to look back at them. What isn't crossed out is what we plan on using for the film.Outlining
We've been developing our plot, and came up with an idea. It's not officially our storyline yet, but here's what we've got:
It starts out with a a high school athlete getting injured during practice. He is in the car on the way home, listening to a radio broadcast. The broadcast is speaking about an athlete that got injured, and continues until the kid gets home. He gets out of the car, and walks into his house. The kid gets something to eat, and goes to the T.V. When he turns the T.V. on, the cable is on a sports channel, and is speaking about the same thing as the radio broadcast. The sportscasters talk about how successful the athlete has been, speaking of the awards and scholarship offers he's gotten from colleges. The camera shifts to show the focus on some of the medals, trophies, and scholarship offers sitting nearby the kid as the broadcasters are speaking. At the end of it all, as the broadcasters speak of the issue and the odds of being able to come back from such an injury, the camera shows the injury that the kid has on his leg. The broadcasters ask "Will he bounce back?" as the film opening ends.
This is the first outline that Hayden and I have come up with right now, and we aren't sure if it is the last. We're going over the potential issues as of now, and whether or not it interferes with our target time of 2 minutes. If we feel that it needs to be changed, a new post later on will illustrate that.
We also have a brainstorming sheet with our outline ideas written down. Once the outline is finalized, I'll be posting that too.
This is the first outline that Hayden and I have come up with right now, and we aren't sure if it is the last. We're going over the potential issues as of now, and whether or not it interferes with our target time of 2 minutes. If we feel that it needs to be changed, a new post later on will illustrate that.
We also have a brainstorming sheet with our outline ideas written down. Once the outline is finalized, I'll be posting that too.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
The Start-Up Process
Before starting a film opening, everyone has to come up with their plot, and what specifics will be in that plot. But even before that, any producer/director must know what genre their film will be based around, and that's exactly what we figured out first.
A genre is a style of film that is based around a particular set of characteristics.The two of us have had always had an interest for sports, so we decided to come up with a film opening based around sports. Now knowing of that, we decided that we should add more to the film. Sports are usually sub-genres in films, so we decided to look into what kind of genres have had success with sports story lines. When looking at the top grossing sports films since 1976, a large percentage of the films contained either comedy or drama genres. We knew comedy wasn't really our thing, especially from a production standpoint, so we decided that a drama film would be a great fit for us, especially considering the fact that a good film opening should be able to move the audience, and dramas do exactly that from an emotional standpoint. Dramas present realistic characters, behavior, and story lines, and we feel that incorporating these characteristics with a sports film would give our audience a great feel for the story throughout the film.
We haven't developed our plot yet, but we have a couple of ideas, so as we continue on with our brainstorming and research, those ideas will develop.
A genre is a style of film that is based around a particular set of characteristics.The two of us have had always had an interest for sports, so we decided to come up with a film opening based around sports. Now knowing of that, we decided that we should add more to the film. Sports are usually sub-genres in films, so we decided to look into what kind of genres have had success with sports story lines. When looking at the top grossing sports films since 1976, a large percentage of the films contained either comedy or drama genres. We knew comedy wasn't really our thing, especially from a production standpoint, so we decided that a drama film would be a great fit for us, especially considering the fact that a good film opening should be able to move the audience, and dramas do exactly that from an emotional standpoint. Dramas present realistic characters, behavior, and story lines, and we feel that incorporating these characteristics with a sports film would give our audience a great feel for the story throughout the film.
We haven't developed our plot yet, but we have a couple of ideas, so as we continue on with our brainstorming and research, those ideas will develop.
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